Gustaf Munch-Petersen

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Gustaf Munch-Petersen (born February 18, 1912 in Copenhagen , † April 2 (?) 1938 in Aragón ) was a Danish author and painter. He was groundbreaking for modernist poetry in Denmark . He died as a volunteer in the International Brigades fighting in the Spanish Civil War .

life and work

Gustaf Munch-Petersen grew up in Copenhagen. His mother, a Swedish editor, introduced him to Swedish literature . He wrote poetry in Swedish, English and Danish. He was an admirer of the Danish poet Jens August Schade . After a few aborted attempts at studying, he turned to art. In 1932 he made his debut with the volume of poetry det nøgne menneske (The naked man). His poems are influenced by French surrealism and Finnish-Swedish modernism , and formally they are very unconventional. For example, the dash is often used as a separator.

At the age of twenty he left the academic milieu of Copenhagen, traveled through Europe and finally settled on Bornholm in 1935 , where he painted surrealistic pictures and in 1936 married Elisabeth Bruhn Hjorth (1909–1997).

Mod jerusalem appeared a year earlier . In the foreword to this collection of poems, Munch-Petersen wrote that he would dedicate his life to the salvation of the world and would set out for Jerusalem like the Savior. He saw the world threatened by the National Socialist takeover . The heterogeneous linguistic forms and images of his ideas were difficult to interpret for his contemporaries. On the other hand, his last volume of poetry, nitten digte (nineteen poems) , published in 1937, was quite different with clearly represented images of nature. In the same year he volunteered in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War . In letters he described his commitment as a continuation of his artistic work. He fell in fighting in the spring of 1938, and news of this did not reach Denmark until September. The exact date and place of his death are not clear.

Munch-Petersen's collection of poems det underste land , published in 1933, has won several awards in Denmark. In 1990 it was included in the list of the newspaper Politiken among the Danish books of the century and in 2006 it was included in the literary canon of the Danish Ministry of Culture. His paintings were rediscovered and exhibited repeatedly in 2000. Numerous publications appeared about his struggle in the Spanish Civil War.

Publications

  • 1932: det nøgne menneske (The Naked Man). Poems
  • 1933: simon begynder (Simon begins). novel
  • 1933: det underste land (The lowest land). Poems
  • 1934: mod jerusalem (To Jerusalem). Poems
  • 1937: nitten ended (nineteen poems).
  • 1938: Udvalgte graduated (Selected Poems). Published posthumously
  • 1959: Samlede skrifter (Collected Writings).

Exhibitions

  • 1935: Kubisme Surrealisme , Copenhagen
  • 1935: Ung dansk og svensk Kunst , Oslo
  • 2000: Bornholm Art Museum
  • 2000: Silkeborg Art Museum

Quote

" Overalt can I se dem
vandrende
elskende
grædende -
whose resident he lukkede
og på indersiden af ​​deres sjæle sidder jord
fra det underste land -

everywhere you can see them
wandering
lovingly
crying -
closed face,
and on the inside of their souls sits earth
from the lowest land - "

- Gustaf Munch-Petersen

literature

  • Do Andersen Nexø: Gustaf Munch-Petersen . In: Anne-Marie Mai (Red.), Danske digtere i det 20. århundrede , Volume 1, Gads Forlag, Copenhagen 2002, pp. 380–391.
  • Mogens Brøndsted: Denmark . In: Nordic History of Literature , Volume 2, Fink, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-7705-2105-6 .
  • Leo Kari: Behind Spain's mountains. History of a defeat , Ingo Koch Verlag, Rostock 2001, ISBN 3-935319-14-2 .
  • Torben Persson: Nøgenhedens legionær - Gustaf Munch-Petersen , Borgen, Valby 2001, ISBN 87-21-01692-5 .
  • Ole Sohn : Gustaf Munch-Petersen og den spanske borgerkrig , Rødovre 2007, ISBN 9788791959080 .
  • Lene Sørensen, Troels Andersen, Lars Kærulf Møller: Gustaf Munch-Petersen (exhibition catalog). Bornholms Kunstmuseum 2000, ISBN 87-89059-42-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "2. Svend Dahl / Poul Engelstoft names April ": Dansk skønlitterært forfatterleksikon 1900–1950 , Vol. 2, Copenhagen 1960, p. 316." About April 2nd "is Dansk biografisk leksikon , Vol. 10, Copenhagen 1982, p. 100, on. "28. March “can be found in Virpi Zuck: Dictionary of Scandinavian Literature , Chicago 1990, p. 422.
  2. ↑ Lone Klem, Erling Nielsen: Navne i dansk Litteratur , Copenhagen 1970, p. 120
  3. ^ Mogens Brøndsted: Denmark . In: Nordic History of Literature , Volume II, Munich 1984, p. 546
  4. ↑ Kulturministeriets litteraturkanon 2006 litteraturpriser.dk, accessed on June 28, 2012
  5. ↑ From the title poem of the volume of poetry det underste land . German from Mogens Brøndsted. Here in: Nordic History of Literature , Volume II, Munich 1984, p. 547
personal data
SURNAME Munch-Petersen, Gustaf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish author and painter
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Copenhagen
DATE OF DEATH uncertain: April 2, 1938
Place of death Aragon